Uber wants you to bop the toy, not its drivers. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel, File)

(Newser)
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Uber hopes a kid's toy that can be pulled, twisted, and bopped will keep drunk passengers too busy to distract—or bop—its drivers. The firm has started placing the Bop It toy, a '90s favorite that can be seen in action here, in the backs of cars in Charlotte, NC, the Verge reports. "Folks there have found it's a great way to keep drunk riders entertained so they don't distract their driver," Uber says in a blog post explaining some new safety measures, including the use of gyrometers and accelerometers in smartphones to gauge how smooth rides are—and check whether complaining customers are telling the truth.

The toy test follows some well-publicized attacks on Uber drivers by drunk passengers, including one from a former Taco Bell exec who's now suing the driver for recording video of the attack. "An intoxicated rider who is engaged in something interesting is less likely to be irritable and aiming aggression at the driver," Joe Sullivan, Uber's chief security officer, tells the Guardian, which notes that Uber promotes itself as a service for people too drunk to drive themselves home. The Guardian reports that in another move to pacify passengers, Uber drivers in Seattle have been installing passenger-facing mirrors in back seats because research has shown people who can see themselves may be better behaved. (This Miami doctor was suspended after an Uber confrontation.)

Has any other company ever faced as many problems and scandals as this one? And why is it always Uber and never Lyft?

Ezekiel 25:17

Mar 4, 2016 8:57 AM CST

Update, I can't update it below. Uber and Lyft now take my card. So I've used them a lot.

solipsist mine

Jan 28, 2016 10:04 AM CST

Interesting to see this millennial service facing the same issues confronted by conventional cabbies for decades. I suspect we will continue to see these car services morph into resembling that which they are supposedly replacing - of course trying to accomplish all "improvements" at the drivers' expense. To the point, however, I can imagine the experiment being successful (not the same as 100% effective) as the game does have the claimed draw and powers of distraction. But my first thought was of a driver being beaten about the head with a plastic, handled toy provided to drunken riders, and the second was of drivers being driven mad by the obnoxious, loud electronic beeping tones of the game. I suspect I'm far too fussy a driver to ever serve as a car-service-app driver. The first time I found a wadded gum wrapper tucked in a door handle, or had someone ask me to turn off NPR, or turn it up or down, I'd probably flip out. It's been bad enough compelling my kids to remember all my OCD rules about what they can't do - no paying customer would ever put up with that crap!